Top Ten Tuesday 50 - My Top Ten Dream Games

Disclaimer:
There are many top ten lists but this one is mine, if you think a
game is missing here, I either didn't play it, didn't have any
interest in it, or I just hate you.

Pre-List
Notes

At
last we've made it - fifty top ten lists, one new list nearly every
week of the year. It's been an incredible motivator to keep me
writing on my blog and a lot of fun to explore topics both common and
unique. Since this final list falls the same week as Christmas, I've
decided to do something special: I'm going to list my top ten dream
games. These are video game concepts that exist only in my head;
ideas that I've fleshed out just enough to create a concept that makes
sense. Also, you're not going to see flimsy sequel yearnings here ("I
want another Chrono game!"), only original or semi-original games
or adaptations. Each entry includes a dumb working title, a classic
one sentence pitch summation, and a brief explanation of the concept.
If I could make a corny Christmas wish this year it would be to see
these games (or ones similar) become reality. Join me for my final
Top Ten Tuesday, and my final list of 2013 with my Top Ten Dream
Games.

Top Ten
Dream Games

10) Working Title:
Possession

Pitch: Take
the real time strategy battles and 3D action of Brutal Legend and
Sacrifice with the ability to switch to first/third person to control
of any of your units on the battlefield.

Concept:
I'm a big Dungeon Keeper fan, and one of the neater little tricks was
a spell that allowed you to take control of any of your minions
during combat, shifting the RTS perspective to a rudimentary first
person action game. I've rarely seen a game utilize this since, and
it would be a great focus for a small scale, action-oriented RTS.
Even multiple players could play on the same team and take control of
forces at will, gaining a superb level of micromanagement, or go back
to the commander view to direct things from above. A single player campaign could explain that you're a dead soldier brought back in a wraith-like form to continue to lead your troops, literally by taking control.

9) Working Title: NFL
Head Coach

Pitch: Take
control of an NFL team from the coaching side by calling plays,
training your players, and playing through each game from a tactical
perspective.

Concept:
I love football but I suck at football games - the amount of
options and button combinations are overwhelming, but I'd love a game
that let me strategize the whole game from a tactical view and then
see a competent AI play it out. Of course an important feature would
be to play as any player on the field and run it myself a la Madden,
but the focus would be on the overall strategy of the game and the
team's direction throughout the season.

8) Working Title: Eric
Watson's Space Pirates!

Pitch: Sid
Meier's Pirates....in space.

Concept: I
adore Sid Meier's Pirates; part pirate simulation part arcade ship
combat with simple but fun timing puzzles for combat and.....dancing?
It's a wonderfully fun formula and one that could easily be plastered
onto different themes. Most easily would be a cool sci-fi setting
where you pilot your own spacecraft. From there you can capture other
ships and create a fleet, or go it alone. Just like Pirates ships can
be small and swift or enormous and carry entire armies worth of
troops, and a randomly generated galaxy would simulate trade routes,
bounty hunters, and general universal society while you decide how to
play your game. Basically I want a real time ongoing simulation
version of Space Rangers (pictured above).

7) Working Title: Haunted

Pitch: A
real time strategy game where you get to play the monsters, ghosts,
and demons trying to kill hapless teens.

Concept: Ghost
Master is a brilliantly underrated title that gives you several
ghosts and a Sims like map with which to scare the pants off people,
earning you more haunting power and experience for your ghouls. I'd
love to expand this concept with all sorts of killer creatures -
think Cabin in the Woods. Let me play all the monsters and bad guys
from other games, have each creature with its own class type and
abilities, and deploy them to wreck havoc against unsuspecting
people. Watch out for ghostbusters, paranormal investigators, and
those pesky resourceful teens though!

6) Working Title: Grand
Theft Spaceship

Pitch: Take
the open world chaotic fun of GTA or Saint's Row and give it a mature sci-fi
setting.

Concept: Rockstar
has proven that they're capable of making an awesome open world game
beyond the low-hanging modern satire of the GTA series. Now that
they've made the definitive Western game, it's time we saw the same
awesomeness applied to a great science fiction setting. I'm picturing
a world like Futurama - an infinite amount of crazy alien races,
tons of casual space travel, and a good sized futuristic city to
explore. A great single player story could explore many classic
sci-fi themes like Red Dead did with Westerns, and a multiplayer mode
would allow friends to explore the city-state and neighboring hostile
planets or dimensions together. Sci-fi GTA needs to happen!

5) Working Title: Strange
Land

Pitch: After
being rudely abducted by aliens, the alien ship crash lands on a
strange and exotic world - Earth 65 million years ago!

Concept:
My love for dinosaurs has been well established. Picture this: your
average badass (male or female, your choice) is abducted by aliens
and experimented on. The ship malfunctions during flight and crash
lands on a strange primeval world. Well actually it's Earth, in the
Cenozoic era! Armed with cool alien powers you steal some equally
cool alien weaponry and high tail it out of there. Now you have to
contend with the surviving aliens trying to recapture you as well as
a fully fledged dinosaur ecosystem with radiant AI, and a beautiful
world waiting to be explored. Although combat would certainly be
involved, the focus would be more about survival in this harsh world.
We could always add cooperative multiplayer as well - you weren't
the only one that was abducted...

4) Working Title: Gotham
City

Pitch: Create
the entirety of Gotham City in a massive open world that acts as
Batman's playground.

Concept: Even
before the Arkham series made Batman a viable and popular gaming
icon, I've wanted a proper open-world Batman game. While the latter
Arkham games come close, I still want something much larger and more
akin to the scope of GTA V's Los Santos. Give us all of Gotham City
in its dark, crime-riddled glory, so much that the title of the game
doesn't even have Batman in it as it's really all about the city. Let
me change into Bruce Wayne in the daytime to drive around and gather
contacts, find collectibles, and perform various mini-games to
increase Wayne's prestige for experience. At night we don the cape
and cowl and take to the streets - or better yet roll around in the
batmobile or any one of the Batman's signature vehicles. Randomized
crimes take place all over the city from minor scuffles to armed bank
robbery and more, as well as major and minor story arcs and a main
quest line that takes the best stuff from the Arkham games. I'm
thrilled that Batman has received such great attention in the last
generation, but feel that there's still an ultimate Batman game
waiting to be created.

3) Working Title: Powered

Pitch: Recreate
the hero creators and worlds from City of Heroes/Champions Online in
a non MMORPG open world..

Concept: I'm
one of those that had the most fun with City of Heroes and the like
with the awesome superhero creator. Choosing your own ability set was
fun but being able to customize your own original superhero with the
insane amount of options was a real treat that few games have been
willing to replicate. Well I want that amount of customization in an
original superhero game with its own decent sized world to explore.
To compensate the multiplayer should be much smaller - like a GTA
size server of 16 people. Super-powered heroes and villains would be
rare, as they should be, and a clash in the city with real time
deformation and destruction would be absolutely amazing. Single
player could also follow the rise of your super powered character as
you decide what path to follow and how to use your powers, not unlike
Infamous. But a focus on multiplayer with showing off your own
customized superhero, teaming up and forming supergroups with friends
and raiding hero/villain hideouts would be amazing - just take out the
unnecessary MMORPG aspects and we're golden.

2) Working Title:
Transformers: Generation One

Pitch: Finally
explore the era of the original cartoon in a new multiplayer-focused
Transformers title.

Concept: The
Cybertron prequels by High Moon Studios have been amazing pieces of
fan service and great games in their own right. But what fans want
most at this point is to see our favorite Robots in Disguise make it
to Earth and play out events from the original 80s cartoon show. A
single player campaign could focuse on many of the better plot points
from the show, ending with the Decepticons retaking Cybertron and the
Autobots establishing moon bases - setting up the sequel that is
the '86 film and the rise of Unicron! But the real treat would be
mulitplayer - On Earth the Transformers are much more finite and
actually rely on their disguised alternate forms to hide amongst the
population, both from their foes and from unwanted human attention.
This works as an interesting form of camouflage in my dream of an
MMOish multiplayer server as players vie for important resources and
try not avoid big battles in the middle of the city which create huge
armies of humans to spawn in and mess up your day.

1) Working Title:
Battlefield Dino-Riders

Pitch: Take
the multiplayer combat of Battlefield and add dinosaurs - DINOSAURS.

Concept: Some
of you may be too young to recognize the above picture. If you can
pull your eyes away from its sheer greatness, I will explain that it
was a short-lived cartoon in the 80s with its own awesome toy line.
Space-faring dudes (very Star Trek-like) were fleeing evil
anthropomorphic aliens and ripped a hole in space time blah blah
they both crash landed on primitive Earth. So what do they do? They
use technology to equip the conscripted dinos and mount laser rifles
and basically hi-tech saddles and continue to battle each other. This
is a game that needs to happen! Lasers! Space! Dinosaurs!
Laser-dinosaurs! The large maps of Battlefield can recreate huge
swaths of canyons, jungle, and rainforests with pieces of spaceships
and structures strewn about. And of course, most of the vehicles are
dinosaurs in all shapes and sizes - with giant ones like the T-Rex
holding a dozen players in various slots to rain down death - with
the captain able to act as the pilot and crush, chomp, and inspire fear in everything
around him. Yes. Yesssss.

Wrap Up

It's
been a fun fifty lists, and I was excited to share some of my more
realized video game ideas with all of you. Some of them are, like the
video game process, are very iterative (combine <popular game
mechanics> with <cool game setting>) while others are just
neat ideas. Looking at the above list it's pretty obvious that I'm a
big fan of open-world games that let me explore with friends, but with a smaller scale rather than giant MMORPGs. We're also in a
terrible dearth of good strategy games these days, and some of my
dreams definitely reflect that desire to see more real time strategy
titles. If you've had any great ideas be sure to share them in the
comments, we gamers can be a creative bunch. Happy Holidays!

Within
the next week or two I'll post a full Top Ten Tuesday recap that will
also act as a bit of a farewell. This will not mean I'm quitting my
blog or the GIO community however, I love you guys too much. But it
does mean that my posting will slow down significantly and mostly
come down to Final Thoughts posts for Rogue's Adventures as well as
any topics or lists that I deem personal enough to post here - which will
certainly include my upcoming Top Ten Games of the Year and Most
Anticipated for next year. Most of my writing will be focused on
Leviathyn as we unveil our grand opening of our newly revamped site
in early 2014, and I've accepted a position as the PC Editor. Be sure
to check out my reviews, articles, and videos here: Eric
W., Author at Leviathyn .
As always, thanks for reading.